


at the edge of the ocean

by notsevensamu



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, hinakage, hinata has a dream and then remembers stuff and theres meaning in it somewhere, it's apparent that i write from my feelings and whims, not for plot, professional volleyball
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:47:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24099841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notsevensamu/pseuds/notsevensamu
Summary: "You know, you were in my dream last night. Or, this morning, I guess."Kageyama's eyes fall shut."I came in here to take a nap."Hinata scrunches his face at Kageyama's rebuff. He focuses on the downward curve of Kageyama's lips as he says, "Hey. You don't want me to cheer you up?""I want to sleep."
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Comments: 13
Kudos: 82





	at the edge of the ocean

**Author's Note:**

> a short story that happens in dreams and memories. mostly.

_I have heard this music before,  
saith the body. - Mary Oliver_

Hinata was dreaming.

His mind was vacillating between the tide of his unconsciousness and flumes of sunshine that tried to lift his eyelids into wakefulness. Already this morning, he had nearly surfaced from sleep several times, once early enough that shadows still lanced across the pillows beneath his head. The solidity of the bed had momentarily receded from his left side, and his eyes had cracked open in the darkness, open wide enough to watch limbs pushing themselves away from him.

When he moved to follow, five fingertips pressed lightly somewhere low along his back. 

The gesture came with an implicit reminder. One that was handed out the morning after every match. _Your body needs rest._

And Hinata had sunken back beneath the waves of his dreams.

When he was awoken again, it was due to the errant cawing of a crow. Perhaps perched on the roof of the apartment building, its call was loud and demanding. Enough time had passed that the rising sun was pouring its early rays across the sheets, and Hinata could picture it: black feathers stark against concrete and white light. 

But the sound ceased only moments later, presumably as the bird opened its wings and sought out some more suitable place to begin its day amidst the Tokyo skyline. 

This left Hinata in his current state: partially alert to the incipient summer day swelling beyond the walls—the mottled streets of Sangenjaya and Shinagawa and Ueno and all the neighborhoods of the city unfurling their leaves and sliding open their doors in welcome to the weekend—but, mostly, still sliding around within the hectic brightness of a dream. 

In the dream, Hinata knows he is on a beach in Rio. 

He’s playing volleyball, a court spread out before him. The glare of the tropical sun is disorienting, glinting off the metal posts that hold the net taught. It also glints off the faces of those he’s playing, and the person he’s partnered with, obscuring their identities. He’s forgotten sunglasses, he realizes. That’s the reason he has the urge to squint and shield his eyes, as the hot sand throws the sun’s reflection up at him. But, despite the sunlight, he feels at ease, normal, like he’s used to playing with these faceless people and they’re all having a good time. 

The beach is familiar. Before him stretches the sand and trees and the buildings and beach path that he had once spent almost every afternoon with. The name evades him, somehow, even as he accepts his presence there. How long has it been? Years? Or maybe he’s still here?

It’s a natural thing for him to fall into the tempo of the game, and Hinata can feel the imagined weight of a volleyball punching against his forearms again and again. Once, he watches it lift away from him and fall towards the other person on his side of the net. When it’s his turn to serve, he can feel the sand stick to his palms when he picks up the ball, gritty and clinging. Wind is being funneled down the beach, and it slices through the gaps in his shirt. He sends the ball over the net, resets his stance within the court. He bumps it away from himself again. Someone calls out something, Hinata moves. He approaches the net, sweat beading at his temples, and jumps.

Something in his periphery catches his eye. As he’s in the air, he wants to look, but doesn’t. Instead, he searches for the ball amidst a sky that is suddenly like one big, fiery sun. It hurts his eyes, but he finds the ball anyway, registers the sting as it connects with his palm and careens down in between his opponents legs. 

When his feet hit the ground, he twists, looking for the thing that tried to steal his attention away from the spike. As he turns, it’s as if the sky turns with him. Flipping onto its side, it turns purple. The purple of a sunset. 

In front of him now is not the person without a face. Because dreams are not logical, he’s been swapped out for someone else, replaced by a familiar frame and face that are clear and visible to him. Kageyama is there, his back to the steaming city behind him. He’s not wearing a beach volleyball uniform, or training clothes. Instead, he’s dressed in his national team jersey, the fabric red and dark and insistent, but out of place. The ball has appeared at Kageyama’s feet, and he reaches for it wordlessly. He picks it up, straightens. Then he looks at Hinata for a moment, before turning to walk to the back of the court.

Hinata’s eyes follow Kageyama through the movements of his jump serve, feeling out his insertion into a scene he’s never seen him in. The sand restrains his jump, and the arc of his body isn’t synchronized with the height of the ball. The serve is off. Another pair of players is on the other side, waiting their faces still vague and unrecognizable, but they manage to receive the serve. Hinata is still watching from a spot near the front of the net, so he doesn’t have time to get into position when the opposing partners attack. 

Kageyama dives for the ball from the rear end of the court, and grits his teeth as the sand weighs down his ankles. He just reaches it, his face colliding with the sand and the ball bouncing off the tips of his thumbs as he goes down. Hinata knows he has to get under the ball, and internally shakes himself, prying his gaze from Kageyama. He’s hoping Kageyama will be able to get up quickly enough to send it back as he runs after it, sending an underhand toss over his head to his partner.

He wheels around in time to see Kageyama spike, again beset by the unwieldy clumps beneath his feet. He doesn’t get enough height, and is shut out by the guys across the net. 

The failed play loosens him up, something like acceptance and happiness slotting into place at the prospect of them being on the beach together, playing volleyball as a two-person team.

He trots up to Kageyama, apologizing lightheartedly for the bad play. He laughs when he gets close to him. There are grains of sand dotting his black hair and stuck in patches on his face. It’s amusing, and Hinata reaches up to ruffle the strands. Kageyama reaches up too, his fingers briefly entwining with Hinata’s as he helps him brush the little particles away. This version of Kageyama looks a little younger than he currently is, Hinata notices, with his pale face shadowed by the deep colors of the evening. He can’t see the blue of his eyes, but he tries. There are furrows in his expression, frustration caused by his clumsiness in sand. Hinata tries assuaging him, chuckles as he tells him it just takes a little while to get used to.

Hinata would be lying if he said watching Kageyama play beach volleyball wasn’t charming. In the liminality of the dream, Hinata sees him falter and trip in the sand, and he continues to shout reassurances. Kageyama keeps trying, the red jersey that should be a symbol of proficiency comically belying his imperfections off a solid court. 

Hinata’s mirth only starts to ebb when they lose their first set; it’s replaced by concentration, a desire to win. But the dream becomes murky and stuttering, and it’s hard to parse out what they need to do to play better—his mind offers him snippets of what seems like many different games. They vie for dominance against other opponents, their desperation increasing. Hinata offers balls to Kageyama in the form of tosses, and Kageyama sets some in return. It’s difficult to do overhand tosses in beach volleyball, and it’s a handicap Kageyama is struggling to overcome. He grunts and pants in effort, Hinata trying to watch the adjustments he makes to the way he picks up his feet, plants them when he jumps.

During each set, Kageyama is a blur of red and black before his eyes. They keep losing, over and over again, and Hinata tries to resolve himself to winning, but the more he focuses, the more tenuous his grasp on the dream becomes. The time of day keeps changing, also, purple light changing to pink, to orange, to yellow. It’s distracting, and he keeps thinking he sees the ball coming towards him before it veers into the sand, or his face, as the sky alters above him while he moves. 

When they finally win a single set, Hinata is ecstatic. The sky settles into the color of sunset once more, and he leaps into the air with joy. Kageyama is at the net, shoulders heaving and sweat shimmering on his skin, and Hinata runs to him and jumps on him. 

Kageyama’s arms raise to catch him around his torso and hold him in place, and he can hear the soft ‘ _Mmph_ ’ as Hinata’s weight lands against his chest. Hinata hangs on him for a couple moments and then jumps back down, feet dancing in the sand. 

“We won!”

A smile finds its way to Kageyama’s face. “Yeah, finally,” Then his tone turns mocking, “I thought you were supposed to be good at beach volleyball?” 

“Oi!” Hinata lunges for him again, “You can't tell _me_ that, when you completely _sucked_ —!” 

They wrestle in the middle of the court, slices of color flashing through Hinata’s brain as the world jostles and rocks. The tan of the sand, the white of the ball at their feet, the green of the tops of the palms shading the court. He locks onto the red of Kageyama’s jersey again, noticing again the way it looked against the context of the beach. As they’re tugging against one another, Hinata clings to it, and for a moment he considers, the dream version of himself liking the way it looked against the backdrop of the sunset. But still it's out of place. An error in chronology, in setting, and it bothers him senselessly. It's also a barrier between them. 

He decides all at once to take it off.

He takes the hem of the jersey in his hands, and without preamble, shoves it upward. He watches Kageyama’s face disappear underneath it, Hinata’s gesture too sudden for him to have even formed a reaction. He feels the fabric when it catches on Kageyama’s shoulders, laughs at the image before him, of a seemingly headless Kageyama, and then shuts his eyes as he pulls. He yanks, waiting for the thing to separate from Kageyama’s body, and just when it does, abruptly, the tension evaporates, and he’s not pulling against anything anymore. 

The world tilts out from underneath him, and then his butt is in the sand.

When he opens his eyes, he can see the moon. 

It’s hanging low over the water, solitary and huge. He registers that he’s exactly where he had just been standing, but now he’s sitting, legs crossed, on cool sand. He looks around, head turning this way and that, and seeing no one. The beach is deserted, Kageyama’s body having dissolved beneath his grasp. Above him, there are stars, dimmed by the glittering lights of Rio at night. Off near the shoreline, black waves are tumbling and collapsing, and further in the distance mountains stand, monoliths of shadow and height. 

Somewhere in his mind he feels the lightness of the games he had just played blow away from him, snatched from his grasp by a breeze. And something new drops into his stomach like a deadweight into water, sinking away from him as it eradicates the rhythm of his dream so far. 

Gradually, a hollow feeling begins lapping at him like the waves, like he’s suddenly been dumped out and left behind. He feels the urge to wrap his arms around himself. When he goes to lift his hands, though, they catch on the shirt that is still in his grasp. He looks down, unravels his fingers from the jersey, and smooths it over his knees. In this lighting, its color is sanguinary and unsettling. He wants to identify what he’s feeling, but it’s like groping around on this beach at night looking for a lost key or wallet; the word evades him, lost to the sand around him.

As he sits there, he listens. His ears strain for something that will mitigate his confusion, bring him back to the company he had only just been in. 

And eventually, a voice begins to echo quietly in the corners of his mind, at first indistinct. It coalesces, rising to meet an old anxiety made new again in his chest.

 _What are you doing here?_ It asks, simply. And then rephrases. 

_Who are you here for?_

It whispers: _Is anyone waiting for you?_

_Go home_

_No, not there._

And then, after a moment, curious:

_Will you just sit there?_

And so he stands. 

He still doesn’t anticipate it, but as he rises the world lurches again, disappearing as quickly as it came. His grip on the ground beneath his feet slips, and he has to thrust a hand into the sand to keep himself even partially upright. 

It’s sunny again, and then it’s not. He finds his balance, and as he does something tickles the back of his ankle. He looks down to see he’s been transported to the edge of the ocean, the water warm against his feet and the scent almost sharp, tangy. But the first wave that washes the sand from beneath his soles drags him with it, and he doesn’t remain on the shoreline. His body tips backwards, he closes his eyes as he destabilizes, waits for his skull to slam onto the wet surface behind him.

He opens his eyes and is blind, vision seared with white. The instinct to panic is slow to build, though, and he feels around himself. The new environment reveals itself slowly to him, in tandem with the fading of the piercing white. The pace of the dream slackens with Hinata’s will—he’s cautious and uncertain as his hands brush soft, puffy material.

It’s his bedroom in his Rio apartment. 

He’s laying on his bed, on his back, waiting for his vision to clear and reveal his ceiling to him. Shadows of palms on the walls make themselves known first, flailing their leaves above him. The air is charged, heavy. It doesn’t take long before the white light crowds out the darkness again, and rain sputters relentlessly against his windows. A thunderstorm.

The word he’d been sifting about for on the beach settles into his consciousness willingly now. This bedroom late at night presses the loneliness in on all sides, and he feels immobilized by it. 

_What can I do?_ He thinks, and his lips move with the words. The sound is swallowed by the torrential rain, and he lets his sight be blotted out by lightening and resolve itself. He lays on his bed, head pressed into the pillow.

He feels scrambled. Like he’s being tossed about in the ocean itself, the current’s whims sweeping him from place to place, deeper and deeper. The strain of the dream eats at him, and he flutters, aiming for a bed that is different from this one. He pushes, breathes out, but it’s muffled and the humidity in the room is almost suffocating. He stays locked in the maelstrom of his thoughts, fumbling for the surface.

Until suddenly he breaks it, and gasps for air.

The water undulates around him, his arms tread mechanically, and he wants to yell out. Instead of his bed in Tokyo, what embraces his body is the churning of the sea. His hair is soaked, flattened to his head and the sides of his face, and he tastes saltiness on his tongue as he bobs in the waves. He can’t feel the bottom beneath his toes, and he has to kick to stay afloat. It’s no longer nighttime, but a storm has still recently passed. If he looks off into the distance, beyond the clearing skies, he can see one moving away from the city, into the cool reaches of moist forest. 

Hinata is about to begin again his searching, seeking once more among the threads of his dream for a way out, when voices finds him, out across the surf, and his mind skips over itself, and he stills.

Up on the beach, he sees volleyball being played, again. 

Instinctively, irrationally, he starts swimming forward. He heads toward the beach, feet kicking and foamy water slicing along his sides. The air has that same sharpness to it that he tastes each time he pulls in a breath, and he moves quickly. Waves dump over his head and he has to keep re-orienting himself, groundless. But the tide is strong and drags him to the shore, and he tumbles out onto the sand, dripping wet, his clothes sticking to his skin.

He lays, sprawled in the sand. His chest is heaving with the effort he’s expended. The shoreline receding into the hazy distance is visible to him from where his cheek is pressed to the earth, and he waits until he thinks he hears his heartbeat resuming its normal pace. Instead of getting up, making the effort to pull against the soaked weight of his clothes and body and going to look more at the landscape of his dream, he lets his eyes fall shut. Hears and feels the water as it rolls across his ankles and recedes, does the same thing again moments later. And this time, when the world begins to melt out from underneath him, he relaxes into it, letting gravity pull him down, and out.

Hinata rises gradually into the muscles of his body.

He is sore and taut from a match played the night before. A match played, and lost. One leg kicks itself free of the sheets wrapped around it, welcoming the coolness of the air beyond his covers. His calf strains with the pleasant ache of muscles reworking themselves, stitching themselves back together again. His head is smashed into the pillow in front of him, blocking out the daylight, and the residue of the dream is clouding his mind. The feeling of it, exhausting and tumultuous, was at first strong enough that he could almost believe he lived it. But, at the same time, as dreams tended to do, he soon finds it trying to fade from him.

He brings it up to Kageyama, late in the afternoon of that same day, maybe just because he wants to remember it.

He’s standing on the small balcony of their apartment, forearms flat on the ledge and chin resting atop his fingers. The door to the living room is propped open behind him, and the heat douses both the outdoors and indoors. The air ruffles through his hair while he watches the streets below him. They’re mostly empty, devoid of movement except for the occasional pedestrian making their way down the corridors of the neighborhood. 

He had time earlier in the day to berate Kageyama for getting up early to go for a run—they were in the middle of their national season, the Nation’s League merely weeks away, and couldn’t exactly afford to be overexerting themselves the day after a match, even if they had lost. They needed days like this one, to briefly put a pause on physical training and recover, using the time to catch up with other things required of them, like sending e-mails, and other tasks that necessitated, you know, sitting down. 

But Hinata had understood, when, after protesting to him that he shouldn’t have gone, he had given him a frown and admitted, “I couldn’t get back to sleep.”

Hinata knows that occasionally losses bothered his partner more than they bothered him. The pressure of maintaining a starting position as the setter on the national team was immense, and it couldn’t be helped that during some games, the stress of it got to him. Because yesterday’s match was their second loss in a row this season, Hinata could see why it was bugging him. But it was inevitable, sometimes, to have days where a couple more mistakes than usual were made. And less-than-positive thoughts could rise up in the mind’s interstices in even the most consistent player. 

Right now, Kageyama is spread out on the floor of their living room, working through his second series of stretches for the day. One movement after another, he’s been switching between them silently, while Hinata stands several feet away, staring at the rooftops of the buildings across the street. 

When the chiming of a timer alerts Hinata that he's has finished, he glances over his shoulder. Kageyama takes his phone in his hands, taps on it for a few minutes. The temperature was high enough that it had convinced him to take his shirt off, and Hinata watches the way the shadows cast about between the muscles of his back and shoulders.

Kageyama stands, and Hinata eyes continue to follow him as he pads towards their bedroom. Only when he disappears beyond the doorframe does he turn his head and resume his observing. 

He finds it harder to see what’s in front of him, his mind focused on Kageyama’s mood, and the way it had been seeping into him all day. He exhales, disliking that Kageyama’s spent almost a full day moping, and resolving himself to do something about it.

He stands there, considering. He watches a women pedal her bicycle down the road, a toddler strapped in behind her, sees a crow swoop between buildings with its glossy wings flapping, and chews on his lip. After a couple minutes, a car rounds the corner, and the sunlight bounces off and into his eyes. 

Walking into their bedroom, Hinata sees Kageyama laying on his stomach on the bed, feet hanging over the edge and head not even on a pillow.

Hinata lowers himself onto his knees on the bed next to his ankles, shuffles a bit and then falls forward until his head is on the mattress parallel with Kageyama’s, and his butt is in the air. 

Kageyama’s face looks tired, but he’s not asleep, is still frowning mildly as his shoulders slump forward onto the mattress. His hair is hanging half over his eyes, and his expression is mostly blank as Hinata’s face comes into focus.

“You know, you were in my dream last night. Or, this morning, I guess.”

Kageyama’s eyes fall shut.

“I came in here to take a nap.”

Hinata scrunches his face at Kageyama’s rebuff. He focuses on the downward curve of Kageyama’s lips as he says: “Hey. You don’t want me to cheer you up?”

“I want to sleep.”

Hinata doesn’t know if he believes him. And anyway, It’s only around 8 o’clock. He lowers his hips and scoots forward until his nose brushes Kageyama’s, the contact sending pleasure like a gentle undercurrent through his veins. He thinks about the dream, the concurrent ambiguity and clarity of it that remains in his head, and distantly thinks that he’s glad this Kageyama is solid beneath him. He tilts his head, brushes his lips against Kageyama’s, whose are warm, and soft. 

When he pulls away a fraction, he says, “It was an interesting dream, though.”

Kageyama doesn’t pull away, or flip onto his other side. He only makes a quiet noise, unsure. Hinata returns his lips to his, adding more words in the intervals between kisses. 

“We were playing beach volleyball, in Brazil.” He presses his lips to the corners of Kageyama’s mouth, trying to will away his frown.

“We were kind of terrible,”

“There were some other things in it, too—”

“At one point it was storming,”

“And I was also in the ocean,”

“And it was kinda scary, but, our games were fun,”

“Even if we kept losing.” He stops pulling away as Kageyama’s lips part for him, begin moving with him. He smiles against them.

He half expects Kageyama to open his eyes, look askance at Hinata and his subtle luring, but they stay closed. Hinata isn’t sure where he wants to go, what he wants to do. But he suspects his partner is okay with this, if he’s going along for now—willing to figure it out as they go. 

This is confirmed when, soon, Kageyama is taking Hinata in his arms, sliding an arm around Hinata’s torso, and bringing him with him when they sit up. Hinata is a little surprised, but it excites him, Kageyama seeking out a different position for them, already engaged with the idea of intimacy. Maybe he was realizing that he needed this. Good. 

Hinata can feel the wetness of Kageyama’s tongue against his own, as he leans into him. They kiss for awhile, Hinata wrapping his legs around Kageyama and sitting in his lap. His hands hover, then his fingertips touch lightly to Kageyama’s chest, slide down. He grasps one of Kageyama’s hands in his own. 

The expanse of Kageyama’s skin visible to him makes him hum happily, and he leaves Kageyama’s lips bereft long enough to raise up their clasped fingers and connect his own lips with the smoothness of the back of Kageyama’s palm. 

Whenever they lay in bed together, during the times he was allowed to draw his hands and lips along the planes of Kageyama’s body, memories would tend to alight inside him. All the events of their lives, saturated with action and their bodies; when the memories ingrained in the movements of their muscles were laid bare to him, it would cause something to stir within him. Often, these emotions would be the tipping point for them, when they would push each other faster and yearn for more. 

Hinata remembers times when this has been particularly true.

Hinata remembers the night they won their first match together on the national team. 

His elation after the ball had smashed onto the other side of the net for the final time was almost unparalleled, and the airtight bubble of focus and adrenaline that had surrounded the entire team had burst seconds later, as the last whistle was blown and the roar of the crowds encircling the court flooded into his awareness.

He and Kageyama had both been standing up near the net, but were swept away from each other as their teammates descended upon one another to hug and cheer their victory. Amidst bobbing heads dripping with sweat and jerseys bright and red, Hinata had managed to spot Kageyama. When their eyes met, Hinata’s already hammering heart managed to skip a beat. Kageyama was smiling an open, happy smile so genuine, it made him ache. It made him ache with the memories of all the years they’d shared together. All the games they’d played and nights they’d spent practicing, together on a court. His reciprocated smile was so wide the image of his partner distorted, as his eyes crinkled shut and a heat welled up inside him, moisture prickling at the corners. 

Despite Hinata’s gregarious nature and the excitement pulsing through him, when a group of the younger players—including him and Kageyama—went out that night, he couldn’t bring himself to join them after dinner for more drinks. He wasn’t even drunk himself when their party all ducked out of a restaurant onto a brightly lit side street somewhere in Bunkyo Ward. Hinata could recall the feeling of wanting to be able to remember everything about that night, wanting it to stay sharp and clear inside him forever. 

And so he remembers that as they stood on that sidewalk, the sky was littered with low, wispy grey clouds illuminated by the glare of the city lights. The streetlamps, the neon signs plastered above basement izakayas, the eternal glow of office windows in tall concrete buildings. Above the clouds, stars managed to peak out. It had been raining earlier that day, and so he watched as most of their party dashed off through puddles, to find a bar and continue their celebrations.

It wasn’t just he and Kageyama who had decided to stay back. They stood outside on the sidewalk next to Ushijima, who was also watching the backs of his teammates as they disappeared further into the lively alleyways of Tokyo.

The three of them had walked to the train station together. Kageyama and Ushijima were alike in the sense that they both didn’t actively insert themselves into situations like parties, or casual drinking. Whether it was because most of the interactions that suffused these events left them nonplussed, or simply because it wasn’t inherent in their characters, Hinata didn’t mind. He was used to Kageyama’s act of cool indifference in social scenarios, that often turned into stumbling, awkward, and usually brusque replies when someone deigned to engage him. This part of him was engrained and normal, and it put Hinata at ease, as they walked and thoughts of volleyball tumbled around in his head and spilled from his mouth. He could feel the satisfaction radiating off the two people beside him, and he had thought that that was a better feeling to remember than a night lost to reveling in their win in the dim haze of a club he would likely never visit again. 

They accompanied each other for several stops, and then he and Kageyama said their goodbyes as Ushijima departed to his own apartment for the night. 

They switched trains and ended up back in Setagaya as the last of the clouds were clearing from the night sky. 

Their little apartment was doused in shadows when they arrived, and an entirely different atmosphere charged the space, one that contrasted with the air of concentration and seriousness of that morning when they had been preparing for their match. Hinata had Kageyama’s hand in his as they crossed into the kitchen, the bedroom, moving almost furtively, as if they had to complete some secret and urgent task. 

But this wasn’t like the first time. Hinata had rarely witnessed Kageyama betray his nerves in any way that would be obvious to someone who didn’t know him. He didn’t normally become clumsy, nor did he experience overwhelming physical symptoms of anxiety, like an upset stomach or a burning chest. Rather, Kageyama turned inward on himself when he was upset or overwhelmed—he would become quiet, become hasty, like his mind was spinning in circles so fast he couldn’t pick out a solution from the out of control blur of thoughts. 

This was what Hinata was used to, what he had become able to detect and to coax to a more controlled tempo. 

But the first night they had laid together in bed, clothes shrugged off and bodies touching, they were both trying to pretend they weren’t nearly shivering with nerves. It had been the autumn after Hinata had come home from Brazil, in Sendai. Hinata could sense, acutely, how different it had been from any feeling he had been presented with in high school, how new and how terrifying the territory they were entering into was. He remembered Kageyama’s eyes, wide and blue, as Hinata stared into them with his own, full of anxious determination, and awe.

The night after their nationals win, though, what accompanied them was not barely controlled nervousness or inexperienced fumbling. But there was still an excess of emotion that pulled them together in the darkness of their bedroom, their bodies moving in an increasingly hurried way, almost as if an ocean wave had chased them in through their doorway, gaining momentum as it manifested in the darkness of the streets outside, and threatening to break down their door and swallow them both up if they didn’t move quickly enough. 

Kageyama had held Hinata on both sides as he pushed him backwards towards their bed, his hip catching briefly on the wood of the nightstand. One of them had switched on a lamp in the room, casting light across the floor and their sheets, and Hinata had fallen onto the mattress with Kageyama kissing him from above. 

They both still had their jerseys on underneath their team jackets. The jackets were shed quickly, but Kageyama moved his hands up Hinata’s sides as he took a little more time removing the red fabric from Hinata’s body. He pressed his lips in a line from Hinata’s abdomen to the top of his chest, in the wake of his hands lifting the shirt up and away from him. Once he had it over Hinata’s head, he pressed a kiss to his forehead, eyes closed. This prompted Hinata to move, raising up until he could take Kageyama’s jaw in his hands and bring his lips back to his own. They were sitting in the middle of the bed, and Hinata helped Kageyama remove his own jersey in between kisses and touches that become faster with each breath. 

When both pairs of their shorts and underwear had been kicked away, they found themselves laying atop the covers once more.

Hinata had discovered, after the first couple of times, that in no situation did Kageyama become more flushed than when they were in bed together. Spots high on his cheeks would erupt with red, as he moved with Hinata, overcome with a deluge of sensations and the need to be connected to him.

It was the same this night, Kageyama’s face tinged with red and his dark hair falling into his eyes, as he straddled Hinata’s hips and Hinata guided him down.

Afterward, when Kageyama’s thighs were shaking and he was trying to regain control of himself, he had laid his head down gingerly on Hinata’s chest, his hot breath flowing across his skin. Kageyama was still a lot bigger than Hinata, and even though he rearranged the lower half of his body, so Hinata was supporting only part of his weight, Hinata still felt a little compressed. He let him stay there, nonetheless, welcoming his weight as he himself attempted to recover, the overpowering flood of emotion eddying within him, pooling, and slowly stabilizing to a trickle. 

It was the conclusion of one of the most intense and rewarding days of their lives, and there was something about the way Kageyama had looked at him, right after their match and then again while they were together in bed, something in his eyes that was bright and amazed and rare, that made his heart flutter even now, as he watched the rise and fall of his partner’s back. 

They laid together as time passed, the glow of the lamp in Hinata’s periphery and strands of Kageyama’s hair tickling his naked skin.

In the moment that he decided to speak, his voice was high and soft in the quiet of their bedroom. The words rose naturally out of his throat, filling the air. 

“I really did miss your tosses.”

Kageyama, his eyes having fallen shut, let the statement hover between them for several seconds. Hinata checked to see if he had fallen asleep, and whispered his name. His mouth stayed closed when he uttered a low “Mmm” that was almost too low to hear, only acknowledging. 

“Did you hear me?”

Kageyama didn’t tend to respond to blatant praise like most of the people Hinata had met. The words had presented themselves as such, but Hinata didn’t regret them, was okay with letting Kageyama grapple with them for a minute. 

And grapple with them he must have. Hinata looked down his nose, waiting for him to respond, and watched as a singular tear slid down his cheek. Hinata made some sort of startled, almost apologetic noise. 

“I’m sorry.” He didn’t know why he was actually apologizing. He knew there was nothing to apologize for, was simply fumbling. 

Kageyama’s eyes cracked open, and perhaps in an effort to retain a semblance of composure, he raised his head, and then his body, and moved until he was half-sitting. He hadn’t been willing to let Hinata go, and had shifted him with him until he was the one up against his chest now. Hinata saw his face as they reversed positions. He looked—he didn’t know how else to describe it—like an emotional wreck. Hinata was holding his breath, listening to the drumming of Kageyama’s heart somewhere behind his ribs, when he uttered a response that was a testament to all the things they’d done together, extending well and far beyond a single match.

“Thank you, Shouyou.”

In the present, as Kageyama is threading his hands through the strands at the back of Hinata’s hair, moving them up through the crown of his head, Hinata is brimming with this memory. Kageyama’s hands feels nice, and when Hinata looks up at him his eyes are caught in the sunlight.

“The sun,” Kageyama’s words whisper across the space between them, reflecting Hinata’s thoughts. He looks briefly over his shoulder, where the sheer curtains hang gracefully on either side of the windows. The western sky outside falls shamelessly into their room. 

When he looks back, he sees Kageyama’s eyes again, pupils wide, and smiles. 

“What?” Kageyama’s voice is still murmured, distracted. 

What Hinata wants to say is too abstract, too many parts emotion to be carved into words. The smile was a reaction to what was inside of him, not the result of a thought that had occurred to him. His shoulders twitch, his toes curl against the sheets. “I’m just happy,” He says, and also decides to add, because that doesn’t seem to cover even a fraction of things. “And glad you’re here.”

Kageyama scoffs gently. “I’m only here because your tactics worked on me.”

Hinata dips an eyebrow at him, “That’s not what I meant.”

And Kageyama smiles back. It seems innocuous, but Hinata catches something almost slightly cunning in it. “Yeah,” He says, “But I think I know…”

Kageyama couldn’t have been thinking about the same things Hinata was, the chances were too low. That first match together in Tokyo, it only went through his mind because the foil to that scenario was playing out now. They weren’t celebrating a win, but were working to motivate themselves after a loss. At least, motivation was Hinata’s goal, his strategy. 

“I don’t think you should be worried about me abandoning you on a beach anytime soon.”

Hinata’s mouth opens. A pause.

“You were saying things, this morning. I didn't catch half of it, but you kept asking me where I went.” His smile softens as he says this.

“Oh,” Hinata’s lips round out with the word and he can feel himself start to blush a little. Then he laughs. “And you didn't wake me up?!” It’s funny, that this is the connection he’s made. It makes him slightly embarrassed, when he thinks of how many of his riled thoughts during the dream could’ve been vocalized to the man in bed beside him. But, he decides he can ponder the implications of Kageyama listening to his unfiltered dreams later. “Okay, you didn’t _abandon_ me. You more, like, dissolved.”

His partner looks like he’s about to ask a question about this, but seems to decide that’s not what’s important. In the time it takes for him to do this, Hinata goes on: “What I meant was just, _here,_ in the broad sense. Like, where we are, now.” He doesn’t know if this makes sense, and he gestures as he says it, as if to indicate their room, their apartment, their life. 

It’s clear that Kageyama had said what he said about the dream in part to humor Hinata, because when Hinata says this he goes back to kissing him, leaning in fairly suddenly, the material beneath him swishing as he moves. He doesn’t seem that concerned about having misinterpreted Hinata’s words, and the grin is still on his face. “Oh,” He parrots back at him.

Now it’s Hinata’s turn to scoff, in between breaths. But it’s also making him flustered, as well, Kageyama’s teasing. If it’s in subtle retribution for Hinata disturbing his nap, or him finally relinquishing his sourness about the game, he’s unsure. But, he likes it. And when, after some time, Kageyama takes him and lays him down below him, Hinata pokes back by asking, “So, does this mean you’re feeling better?”

A laugh that at once sends redolent warmth and aroused heat through Hinata escapes Kageyama’s lips. 

“Well, for your sake, let’s just say that I’m glad you’re here, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> ~ whoo what even is this i'm not sure. it's kept me occupied for the better part of two weeks tho... somehow. 
> 
> Thanks to Ruth Ozeki's _A Tale for the Time Being_ for making me want to write a dream sequence, and also to Mary Oliver for being a lovely queer poet who has written about nature and life in ways that resonate with me.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
